


In Vino Veritas

by scarletjedi



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Drinking Contest, Established Relationship, Gigolas Week 2, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletjedi/pseuds/scarletjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dangers of Drinking Dorwinion Wine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino Veritas

**Author's Note:**

> Again, unbetad, but I really like this one. :)

"I don't understand how you can even wet your mouth with such little cups!" Gimli said, looking over his tankard at Legolas's wine glass. They were sitting at the table of honor in the Main Hall of Erebor, celebrating the anniversary of the end of the War of the Ring. Thranduil had come with his retinue, Legolas, and several caskets of Dorwinion wine, something that had caused some tension amongst the older dwarves, those remaining of Thorin's Company. 

It was that tension that made what followed seem like a good idea.

Legolas raised an eyebrow. He was dressed, not as he had on the quest in simple greens and browns, but as a Prince of Mirkwood in shining silks and with a circlet of new spring growth in his hair, a smaller companion to his father’s woodland crown. "This is not a drink for thirst, meleth-nin," Legolas said. "This is the wine of Dorwin, to be savored for taste and effect." 

Gimli licked his lips. His own finery was heavy and hot, though he did not have the same drapery as Legolas. Instead, his main irritants were the cuffs and rings that marked his station and his line; silver cuffs in his ears, and gold hoops, a diamond stud in his nose and a mithril ring through either side of his bottom lip (this was a new affectation, to mark his renown as a diplomat and highlight his “silver tongue”). "Effect, huh?" he asked. 

Legolas nodded once, solemn. 

Gimli bobbed his head. "I bet I can drink more than you." 

"I'll take that bet." 

***

The room was very sharp. 

There was no blurring as with ale, or spinning as with wine. Instead, everything was...sharp. Clear. Like Gimli could see everything, and it all made perfect sense. Everything made perfect sense. Gimli grinned. No wonder this wine was so well received, and drunk from such small vessels. Trust the elves to create a drink that made you the opposite of drunk. 

Speaking of...Gimli drank again. Next to him, Legolas was staring into the distance, eyes on something only he could see. Every once in a while, he giggled. There was something--they had been doing something, but...Gimli couldn't remember. He leaned his elbow on the table and braced his head with his hand, looking at his heart's One. Legolas shone with uneartly light in the fire-bright halls, like a star had taken flesh and was off his tits on elvish wine. 

Legolas noticed Gimli staring and grinned at him. His eyes were heavy, and when he smiled it put Gimli in a decidedly bedroom mood (though honestly, they had a terrible track record for keeping such activities to the bedroom. Gimli blamed Legolas's affinity for trees for their tendency to make love in the woods rather than in a marriage bed. Legolas would simply smile, and say the woodlands were their marriage bed). 

"I think you are winning," Legolas said with studied exactitude. 

Gimli sniffed. “Winning what?” he asked. 

Legolas laughed, squeaking when he breathed, and he stopped, looking at Gimli with his eyes wide. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy. Gimli snorted, and they were both gone, lauging and giggling, leaning on each other. 

Legolas leaned his head on Gimli’s shoulder. It was warm, and he smelled like leather and cedarwood, and like the juniper berries that graced the twigs in his hair. His love was rarely still, and now was no exception; Legolas rubbed his cheek against the velvet of Gimli’s overtunic, burying his nose in Gimli’s abundant mass of curls and breathing deeply. “I have missed you, my love,” he said into Gimli’s ear, his voice smoky like the taste of the wine itself, and Gimli was not unaffected. “It has been a long few months.” 

“Aye,” Gimli rumbled, eyes slipping shut as Legolas’s lips met his ear, catching on the metal. Gimli reached out his broad hand and cupped Legolas’s hip, pulling him closer. Legolas chuckled and sucked on a ruby stud, and Gimli felt his husband’s passion hard against his thigh as he straddled Gimli’s leg. Gimli’s hand cupped Legolas’s shapely arse, and Legolas grinned. 

“I would have you here,” Legolas groaned into Gimli’s mouth, writhing against him. Gimli moaned, and would have agreed, but there was something warning him, something flashing danger in the back of his mind--something he had forgotten. 

“Bed,” Gimli said, touching their foreheads together and Legolas panted hotly between them. “For once, I would have you in a proper bed, laid out upon furs and lit by firelight.” 

Legolas grinned, teasing. “And do you have such a bed?” he asked, lifting a finger and tracing the warrior marks on Gimli’s brow. 

Gimli growled low, and pulled Legolas closer to him, thrusting their hips together, and Legolas was caught with a broken moan. “Aye,” Gimli said. “I have such a bed.” 

“Then why are we still here?” Legolas asked, and Gimli could think of no good reason why. His love was here, hot and willing under his hands, and it had been far too long. 

In a single motion, Gimli stood, lifting Legolas, who wrapped his long limbs around him, and carried him off to his bed. 

***  
The next morning, Gimli jerked awake to a pounding on his door. He sat upright, still half-dreaming of blue eyes and starlight skin, and roared, though he cut himself off with a wince as his head throbbed. It felt as if all the armies of the enemy were in his head. Someone pounded on the door again, and that, combined with Gimli’s movement, woke Legolas next to him. 

The elf groaned; he was naked, as Gimli, his hair limp and stuck to his sweaty, pale face. 

“Legolas?” Gimli asked, and in lieu of answer, Legolas tumbled from the bed, taking the sheet with him as he staggered quickly to the loo. In moments, Gimli heard heard him retch, and he winced. 

“Gimli!” Came the shout from outside. His father. *Shit* “Gimli open this door!” 

“Stop yelling!” Gimli called back, loudly as he dared, which was admittedly not very loud at all, and stood, swaying. He pulled on loose pants and what turned out to be Legolas’s tunic, and went to answer the door. He stopped trying to put the tunic on when it became clear that, while it was certainly long enough, it was by no means broad enough, and he opened the door bare chested and squinting. 

Gloin pushed past him into the room. “You’ve done it now, lad. You’ve really done it!” he thundered, and Gimli closed his eyes against an ocean’s swell of throbbing. 

“Must you yell so?” Gimli whined, and Gloin rounded on him. 

“Aye!” he yelled, leaning in close. “I really must!” 

Gimli grit his teeth and glared, but kept his tongue. Gloin looked around. “Well?” he demanded. “Where is he?” 

At that moment, Legolas groaned miserably from the loo, and retched once more. Gloin looked at the door, righteous fury wiped from his face by surprise. Gimli rolled his eyes; you’d think from his reaction that Gloin had never seen a hangover before. Moving more stiffly that he’d like to admit, Gimli put on the kettle to boil and searched through his stores for the stone pot that contained Oin’s special herbal infusion. 

“He’s sick?” Gloin said, dumbfounded. 

“He drank his weight in wine last night, Da,” Gimli said. “Anybody’d be sick after that.” 

Gloin shook his head, and grew serious once more, though his anger seemed cooled. “You’re in a lot of trouble lad,” he said. “With the king _and_ the Elvenking, for that little display yesterday. What were you thinking? Dallying with an elf!” 

Gimli raised an eyebrow. “I distinctly remember you and Ma being much more amorous at every single feast of my youth,” he said. 

“That’s different,” Gloin said. “We were married, and more, your mother is not an elf!” 

“Aye, true, but Legolas is, and that is not a bad thing.” Gimli said, and waited. It took a moment, but before the penny dropped there was once again a pounding on the door. “Open up in the name of the king!” cried a voice. Gloin waved frantically at Gimli, and Gimli shuffled over to his chest to grab a tunic. He passed by the loo on the way, and stuck his head in. Legolas was still wrapped in the sheet, slumped over the bowl and resting his chin on his arm. 

“How are ye, love?” He asked, quietly. 

Legolas blinked blearily at him. “The worst seems to be over. I will live,” he said, voice hoarse. “Thought at the moment I don’t want to.” 

Gimli smiled sympathetically. “Drink some water,” he said, and ducked back out. He still had his tunic half-on when King Thorin III, the Stonehelm, walked into his kitchen. He waved away the guard, and faced Gimli, hand on hips and frowning. 

“I had the Elvenking in my antechamber before dawn this morning,” Thorin said. “He was beyond apoplectic, ranting about something that I still don’t know about as _I do not speak elvish_ , and I just want to know what you have to say for yourself.” 

Yet again, Gimli was denied a chance to speak as the door burst open, and Thranduil himself walked through, with all of his son’s deadly grace and none of his son’s sense of playful humor. 

“Where. Is. My. Son?” Thranduil said, voice like the deepest of shadows. 

“I am here,” Legolas said, appearing like a specter draped in white as he was still wearing only Gimli’s bedsheet. He presented himself like a prince, however, with his head held high. Thranduil spoke rapidly in the strange dialect of Mirkwood, and Legolas answered, low and steady to Thranduil’s heat. The kettle started to whistle, and Gimli took it from the fire, pouring it over the tea. He stirred three times to the right and twice to the left, and added a heavy drizzle of honey. Once dissolved, he took the cup to Legolas, holding it out to him. Legolas turned away from his father, and Thranduil stopped short, looking aghast. 

“Ginger root and honey,” Gimli said. Legolas took it with a grateful look, and sipped it carefully. 

“Thank you, meleth-nin,” he said. 

“This,” Thorin said. “This is exactly what I would like explained.” 

Gimli shrugged. “What would you have me say? I deeply regret that my actions caused you grief, my king, but I do not regret my actions. I acted with love towards my heart’s own One.” Legolas put his hand, warm from the cup, on Gimli’s shoulder, and Gimli smiled up at him. “It has been many months since I had seen my husband, after all.” 

“Husband!?” Gloin cried out. 

“Aye,” Legolas said, and Gimli saw those gathered startle at hearing such a dwarven answer from an elf. “We married in the elvish fashion on our quest.” He turned to look at his father. “When no life is certain, every moment is precious.” 

“And were exchanged our vows in dwarven fashion in Minas Tirith, after the War was Won,” Gimli said. “Aragorn presided, as is his prerogative as King, and our fellowship held witness.” 

Gloin shook his head. “Why did you not say?” he asked. 

“We did not think we’d have to,” Legolas said. He did seem more steady, and Gimli was glad to see it. “Those who saw us in Minas Tirith knew in an instant. We thought you knew, and were not saying so. By the time we realized we were not obvious to you, so much time had passed that we decided to wait until we returned to the South.” 

“To avoid,” Gimli waved his hand about the room. “This.” 

Thranduil looked at Legolas. “This is much for me to take in,” he said. “I must think. I will call for you, when ready.” With that, he swept from the room. Legolas stepped forward, like he was pulled, but stopped himself. Now was not the time. 

“Your one?” Thorin asked, as Gimli’s cousin as much as King.

“Aye,” Gimli said. 

Thorin sighed. “The oaths of a King are right,” he said,” but your own king is better. There will be a proper wedding, with proper pomp, and--” he pointed at Gimli. “I want no complaints out of you. You brought this on yourself.” 

Gimli bowed. “My King,” he said. 

Thorin snorted. “Aye,” he said. “If only you had thought of that before.” He turned to Legolas. “He loves you something fierce, or he wouldn’t be in such a state. He’ll come ‘round.” 

Legolas didn’t speak, but he bowed formally. Thorin inclined his head, accepting the gesture, and made his leave. 

Gimli turned to Gloin at last, and faced down his father. Gloin shook his head, throwing up his hands. “The world has gone mad,” he said. “But you are happy? Truly happy?” 

Gimli nodded. “Aye,” he said, and took Legolas’s hand. “I am.” 

“Then I am happy for you,” Gloin said, then pointed to his son. “But you’re telling your mother.” 

Gimli paled.

**Author's Note:**

> I was so torn between having Legolas appear in the doorway and be all "noble if ignobly dressed" or flopping like a fish onto the bed. It was the fish until I realized Thranduil was there. *sigh* Ah, well.


End file.
